Free Offer Helps Right Vandalized Headstones

April 1, 1986|By Jonathan Susskind, Staff Writer

FORT LAUDERDALE — Help for historic Evergreen Cemetery, plagued by tombstone-toppling vandals and grass that grows faster than it can be trimmed, is coming free from companies in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton.

Two workers from Broward Monument Inc. spent Monday afternoon righting the dozen headstones that vandals had knocked down in the northeast corner of the 76-year-old cemetery at 1200 SE 10th Ave.

``We`re doing it gratis,`` said co-owner Larry Kolvacin.

And on Wednesday, city cemetery director Herb Carroll is scheduled to meet with an official of Encore Service Systems in Boca Raton, which has offered to donate a lawn crew for one day to edge around ground-level markers obscured by grass and weeds.

Encore office manager Ron Capitena said on Monday that the company made the offer because ``we`re very people-oriented and we care about the communities that we`re associated with.``

Although the details won`t be firm until after the meeting, Capitena said he hopes to send 12 to 15 workers to Evergreen on this Friday or next Friday.

City workers mow and do routine maintenance in the 15-acre cemetery but only recently began trimming around the ground-level markers after people complained they could not find graves because of the thick vegetation.

Carroll said he was grateful for the services of the Kolvacins, who about three years ago started repairing sagging monument foundations and sprucing up Evergreen, where many Broward County pioneers are buried. The Kolvacins said their crews fix broken headstones in most Broward cemeteries as they get time.

Near the fallen stones, where vandals have rolled back six feet of chain-link fence, someone has written in black marker on a post: ``Those shutt had had respect for the resting.``

``Grammatically, it`s awful,`` Carroll said, ``but the spirit of the message is so true.``